PROVENANCE -

With the Redfern Gallery, London, 1937, from whom purchased by Ursula, Viscountess Ridley.

Sotheby’s, London, 10 May 1978, lot 62 (to the Fine Art Society).

With the Fine Art Society, London, January 1979.                                 

Peter Farley.

EXHIBITED -

London, Redfern Gallery, Figure-Pieces, Portraits, Landscapes & Flower-Pieces in oil & Watercolour by Glyn Philpot, 4-27 November 1937, no. 44 (30 gns.).

Le Trayas is on the Côte d’Azur between Cannes and Saint-Raphaël. Philpot stayed at the Hotel Gray & d’Albion in Cannes in December 1936, the first of several trips to France to prepare for his December 1937 exhibition. Another watercolour showing the same building, from closer and from the right of the central axis, was presumably the Red Houses, Le Trayas, no. 67 in the 1937 exhibition.[i]

Ursula, Viscountess Ridley, who purchased this watercolour from the 1937 exhibition, was the daughter of Sir Edwin Lutyens, the foremost British architect of his day. Philpot had provided paintings in for Lutyens interiors in New Delhi, in Mulberry House, Smith Square, Westminster for Lady Melchett and in Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. In April 1937 Philpot had painted Lady Ridley’s eleven-year-old son Matthew White Ridley in the robes he had just worn for the coronation of King George VI. He also recorded having entertained her to lunch.

Peter Farley was a theatre designer, curator, writer and teacher, celebrated for his innovative approach to the stage. After studying Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art, he became a part of the thriving arts scene of 1970s London, running a gallery called the Artists' Market in Covent Garden alongside artist Vera Russell, and working for many years with stage designer Yolanda Sonnabend on a variety of design projects for theatre, opera and ballet.

[i] It was inherited by the artist’s niece Gabrielle Cross, who lent it to the exhibition Glyn Philpot 1884-1937: Edwardian Aesthete to Thirties Modernist, National Portrait Gallery, London, November 1984 – February 1985, p. 111, no. 105, illustrated. It was sold from her estate by the Fine Art Society, Glyn Philpot RA: Paintings, drawings and sculptures from the Estate of Gabrielle Cross, 17 November 1997 – 16 January 1998, p. 51, no. 40, illustrated on p. 41.